A Conceptual Study on Retail Banking Services and its impact on the Economy

Retail banking in India has fast emerged as one of the major drivers of the overall banking industry and has witnessed enormous growth in the recent past. Retail banking can be defined as a typically mass market banking where individual customers use local branches of larger commercial banks. Services offered include savings and checking accounts, mortgages, personal loans, debit cards, credit cards and so”.

The concept of Retail Banking is viewed as an important and attractive market segment that offers opportunities for growth and profits. Retail banking and retail lending are often used as synonyms but in fact, the latter is just the part of retail banking. In retail banking all the needs of individual customers are taken care of in a well-integrated manner. Retail banking in the country is characterized by multiple products, multiple channels and multiple customer groups. This multiplicity of the roles to be played by the retail bankers adds to the excitement as well as the challenges faced by the bankers.

The growth and development of Retail Banking is an important milestone in Indian banking sectors’ development, though the growth of Retail banking in India is very small as compared development countries, but its growth is much better than India's counterparts in Asia. In India retail banking emerged during mid-1990. The two factors which are important for the growth of retail banking sector are customers and information.